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Story:The End of Eternity/E4
IV No One Has Anything to Say Like a star burning up magnificently before fading into nothingness, the basement of the closed factory descended into darkness once the mysterious girl spoke and embraced Arend. He did not know what to say or what to feel, but the chilling atmosphere of the now-quiet warehouse took most of his attention away and tainted it with terror. Without a word, after looking over the girl’s illogical appearance and replaying her senseless words for some time, Arend took her by the hand and led her out of the building. The outside world was still and just as dark, and the winds did not blow, as if the story they were telling had come to an end. Though the streets were mostly empty and night had completely fallen by now, Arend wanted to be completely alone with the girl in his hands, so he started to walk towards the balcony where the two siblings had met and spoke to him first. He knew that this had to be the girl that drove them to their disappearances. With that in mind, he wanted to hate this odd creature. He wanted to despise her for probably killing the only two people he ever had a chance to connect with intellectually, and he wanted to run away from this very same power of hers that hovered over him like a leech digging into his flesh. But Arend could not find it within himself to hate her. With the girl in his hands, Arend could feel his palms starting to sweat and his heart starting to quicken. Things were getting out of hand quickly and he did not know how to deal with it. Bloodshed, illogical actions, magical transformations, and servitude – all of it had happened in one day; before that he had received an artifact that was apparently a sword; and even before that, he had been unable to stop two people from walking off to their deaths. If he did not believe the world was going to end before, there would have been no way for Arend to deny it now. They walked silently for what felt like hours. Arend could not remember where the balcony was, nor did he recognize the part of the city he had wandered into. Stars barely hung above the clouds like a minimalistic painting made only in shades of black and gray, and an ominous fog hung just a few feet above Arend’s head. It was impossible to tell if this was truly fog or simply clogged smoke from the chugging factories that were still productive at night. Still he walked through this mist of uncertainty, onward and with the girl’s cold black hand ever in his grip. He felt anxious and out of control, but not uncomfortable. Arend never liked touching people, especially not with romantic or affectionate gestures, but something about this girl was different. Her cold hand felt alarmingly like a corpse; her eyes were narrowed and focused, with deep black bags beneath them; everything about her was decidedly inhuman, but still Arend could not find it within himself to feel odd around her. He was as comfortable around her as if they had known each other all their lives. Despite his situation, he remembered that singular light-hearted conversation he had with Natalia Monomus, during that clear school day that felt so long ago. Could this have been how she felt – this familiarity, this awe, and this fear? Before he knew it, Arend brought the girl to the end of the city. Ahead of them, smothered in the darkness like a lover’s embrace, the cracked plains of the naked earth stretched to the horizon. Dark veins of machinery like tainted roots reached out from the city’s outskirts for miles, and dry, ruined land seemed to wither away more than usual near these lines of life. The mysterious fog did not hang over these plains, but a sad and horrific air of despondent death did with just as much subjugation. There was nowhere else to go and nothing else to see. Arend let go of the girl’s hand and turned to her, his eyes wild and bloodshot; hers a golden orange, with an unmistakable twinge of sadness. They did not speak for a long moment, both of them content for a short while to search the other’s countenance for any defining character traits. The first to speak was Arend, as he could no longer deal with not knowing anything about the person that had captivated him so. “What did you mean when you called me your Master?” “I meant that you are my Master and I am your Key. The contract has been made, and now our connection is unbreakable.” Arend felt his palms grow swampier with her answer, and he swallowed a heavy lump in his throat before continuing. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what any of that means. What is this “Key” you speak of? What contract has been forged between us? I am ignorant of any such thing.” “Are you truly ignorant, Master?” The Key was just a few inches shorter than him, and her luxurious white hair fell down her back and shoulders, long enough to brush the ground beneath her. Her left hand absently played with a strand of it as she looked up at Arend. “I chose you because I know that you are not ignorant. You and I are alike, and linked in mind, body, and soul.” “I…” He looked down and bit his lip, his expression endlessly troubled by her soothing words. “You asked me a question I recognized, and I answered it. That is all.” “And the question,” she replied quickly, “was something no one else on this planet could have answered. You are my only Master; so it has been, and so it will be, forever and ever.” Arend glanced back up at the girl. He was incredibly bewildered, not just by the situation he was in but also because of an odd feeling within him. It was both familiar and new, somewhat stronger than a déjà vu but still too weak for him to grasp and conceptualize. Her words flowed into his mind like specters from a lost memory. “That’s twice now,” he finally managed to choke out, “Twice that you’ve mentioned something about time. Who… What are you?” He felt as if he already knew the answer before she could have said anything to him. Arend knew from the bottom of his heart that the girl in front of him was more than special; she was something rare, powerful, and ethereal. She exuded fragility and a countenance of mourning, but her voice alone had been enough to drive a group of young adults to brutal suicide – and she had taken away the very existence of Arend’s only two friends. And yet he felt no danger around her at all. “I am one of many that came before humanity. You were born from us in spirit and form, and after we helped you be birthed, we slept in body. Now, you and I are reunited – and the point of our contract awaits.” “Our… our contract? What is the goal of this contract?” What the girl was saying was completely nonsensical – but Arend found it impossible to do anything but believe every word she said. He had already seen the impossible happen, he had even felt it, and an instinct within him told him that this mysterious woman would never lie to him. But instead of answering, the girl held her hands together behind her back and turned to the side. Her noble profile and her sad eyes looked out to the endless destroyed plains ahead of her, and with even more sadness her smile faded. Now that he looked at her from the side, Arend noticed that, leading from the deep black bags beneath her eyes, a thin black line – not unlike the seam line in clothing, or the visible machinery boundaries on an android – trailed down the sides of her face and neck, until meeting the turtleneck of her tight black bodysuit. “Humans did this, didn’t they?” she said, after a long moment of contemplation and silence. “Ruined this earth. Scarred it. Tore it to pieces.” Arend frowned and put his hands in his pockets as he, too, looked off to the monotonous horizon. He thought he sensed a tone of emotion within the girl’s voice, a small accent of agony perhaps, but he was unsure. “Yes. First the Collapse, and now this disgusting method of living that –” “Syphons life and nutrients from the earth. It is not unlike the actions of a parasite.” Arend looked over to the girl, bewildered. “…Yes, you’re exactly right. That’s exactly what it is. I… How did you know that?” “I did not rest. We who birthed humanity were supposed to sleep for all of time, only to awaken when the Creator wills it… but I could not sleep. I could only observe.” “Observe? So… What have you seen?” “The world. Its inhabitants, and the way they destroyed it. Recklessly, selfishly, and arrogantly.” The boy swallowed, his throat getting sore and his mind starting to race. “You… You’ve seen everything? You’ve seen all of human history?” The girl nodded. “You knew of humanity before the Collapse?” She nodded. “You saw what caused the Collapse?” She nodded. “You lived through it? You saw humanity force itself to survive and adapt?” She nodded. “But… but that would mean…” “Yes,” she whispered simply and without a nod this time. The girl looked small for but a moment, dwarfed by her large mane of perfect silver hair and slimmed into the willowy thinness of a shadow. Like a shadow, she appeared so fragile that she looked as if she would disappear in the unforgiving radiance of the sun; like the zenith of a crescent moon, she seemed to sparkle within the abyss around her. Her beauty was startling and ruthless, only punctuated by the oddity and ridiculousness of her existence. She had paused as if to catch her breath, but as Arend stared at her, he realized that her chest did not heave with any breathing at all. “I am immortal,” she finally continued, “as are the rest of my siblings. We were all created at the beginning of time by our father, that eternal Creator, and he gave us our mission within our first breath. We watched him create; we watched him retreat; in his place, we scattered around his earth and we slept. But as I have said, I did not sleep – so I wandered, and I watched, and I lived.” Arend shook. “Your mission. What was your mission?” “We were born to destroy after waking. Empowered by a contract to the very humans that came from our soul, we were to meet again in the navel of the earth, and join our powers to summon our father back to the place he created. When he arrives, all of creation will be destroyed, and we would use his residual power to build the world anew. Like so, with his initial invention, the Creator has made the perfect world of infinite cycling energy, where a world may be born in innocence, descend into sin, and be reborn to its purest state once again. The pain of separation is the same as the joy of union – so the Creator has willed it.” Arend knew not what to say. He tottered forward a bit, swaying and shaking, and his hand gripped onto the gray cloth of his undershirt. His hand grasped right at the apex of his chest, only a short distance away from his heart, and it writhed as he tried to rip out and crush the unidentifiable emotion that had built up within him. “So… You and I are in a contract to end the world and all of humanity, only for it to be reborn again? Where everything will happen all over again? Where the earth will fall to ruin again, only to be introduced to its suffering once more?” “That is correct, Master.” For the first time, the girl chuckled, and her face took on a visage of cruel and black humor. She seemed to laugh at her own death. “Mankind is cursed to corrupt itself for all eternity, and I am doomed to show compassion to a wicked and despicable race full of sin. The Creator is a cruel father.” “…You know something of eternity, don’t you? What are the sins it has revealed to you?” “They are endless, more numerous than the smothered stars just out of my reach. Corruption. Lies. Pointless fear. Ego. Hopelessness and despair. Sloth. Poverty. War. Devastation. Ruination. Pride. Hatred. Apathy. Senseless perdition. Greed. Waste. Lust. Subjugation. Envy. Incompetence. Arrogance. Blindness. And worst of all, the selfish instinct for survival.” Arend finally recognized the emotion within him, and he smiled. His Key sensed this identifying change within him. She looked over to him with a relieved look, and her dark humor still resided in the corners of her eyes, hidden but visible and taunting. “Do you see now, Master? I was born unable to sleep for the billions of years I was supposed to – I was born flawed. You were the human specifically crafted from my spirit for the purpose of being my Master – and so you are flawed as well. We are one and the same.” “So you, too,” Arend whispered, almost unable to control the tremors in his hands, “wish to see the end of the world?” The girl only smiled. He could not find it within himself to smile like she did. If anything, her enthusiasm pained him, and Arend could see her as nothing more than a horrifically tragic figure. He was just a young adult frustrated with his situation in life, and driven by his ideals and disgust for the selfish society he was born into. But she was someone created, it seemed, only to suffer. Living for billions of years with no companion but the earth and the winds sounded to him like the worst kind of loneliness, and he could not begin to imagine the internal torture she must have endured when she realized, over time and through powerless observation, that she was cursed to perform a ritual out of love for an undeserving species. From how she explained it, the girl was one of many who were built out of compassion and genuine love – two emotions that had completely wasted away in watching the very species she was supposed to care for. Now more than ever the girl appeared to be small and fragile, as if she would break any moment within the enormous and daunting night, and Arend’s heart tugged at the prospect of this beautiful woman having no one to talk to for billions of years. He was thoroughly fed up with the world after only nineteen years on it; how she had not descended into madness and despair after millions of years, he did not know. Arend’s sympathetic trance crumbled beneath him as the Key spoke again. “In the end, Master, I am a Key who is bound to your will. Regardless of how I feel or what I have gone through, I was born only to be sentient, not autonomous. If you wish that we rebuild this world, then you will have my full power in your hands.” “Don’t be foolish,” Arend said with another hard swallow. “You know me best of all, it seems, and you know I want nothing more than to destroy this pitiful world. To be enlisted to save humanity and cripple the earth forevermore is the greatest misfortune anyone could wish on me.” Despite his harsh and confident words, Arend could not help but feel diminished and even smaller than the girl beside him. She had plenty of reason to want humanity erased for good – but were his really that valid? To his surprise, the girl suddenly embraced him, her arms wrapping around his and her head resting on his shoulder. Her body and hands still felt eerily cold, but the closeness of her embrace warmed Arend inside and out. “As I said, my Master, you and I are one. I had no doubts in your motivations.” He froze, awkwardly taken aback by the sudden gesture of affection and immediately aware of the girl’s curves. Arend looked away and bit his lip. “I, I don’t even know your name, I realized. Do you have one? Do you know mine?” “I do not know yours,” she said simply. “But I am Vizrupaksa, Proti Athanti Kleidi-tis-Aionititas. In your language, it means All-Seer, First Immortal Key of Eternity.” “Ah, that’s… unwieldly.” Arend looked down at the Key and their eyes met. A change immediately bloomed inside of him once again. Those eyes no longer looked sad; the expression of the Key had barely changed and her face still looked exactly the same as mere minutes before, but now she was hopeful and relieved; Arend realized that she cherished him like no one else had before, like he was her savior. A powerful feeling of prideful ownership exploded behind his eyes, and as he acted on this instinct, Arend put a hand around the Key’s slim waist and lifted her chin with the thumb of his free hand. “It is unwieldly,” he added in a vicious growl, “and incorrect. A slave name for a cursed being. But we are reunited, and you are cursed no more. Neither the Creator nor the other Keys have any power on you; no influence; no more chains. You are a new person now, and I give you a new name. I am Arend Vitalis and you are now Klaytaza, and we will not bring humanity back to life.” His Key smiled. “And why is that your heart’s desire, Master? You have heard my story. Your Key wishes to hear yours.” Klaytaza peeled away from Arend gently, the same satisfied smile on still on her face. She made sure to emphasize the fact that she was his, and just like before, this relationship of power and ownership swelled Arend’s breast and gave him a wild, beastly confidence. “I wish I could say I lived a life like yours,” he whispered almost shamefully, “but my dissatisfaction is not the same. I was born in this hideous world and I have seen nothing but smoke from chimneys in the skies. Nothing but the ruined earth beneath my feet and between cracked steel. I see nothing but this world… and I know that we have made it the sad hell that it is. No one sees it but me. I have tried to tell people, I have tried to influence my father to fix his job, but they never listen… no one ever listens.” Arend lifted his head as he looked down on the world ahead of him, and he let his hands rest in his dark pockets. Klaytaza had returned the pen to him, and now it stayed in his pocket once again. All memories of Natalia, the pen’s original owner, had vanished. “My parents have worked most of the day away for as long as I can remember. Once, about nine years ago - when I was still young, still innocent and ignorant – I took my sister outside on a walk. I remember that she held my hand so tightly in the bustling city, but I was not afraid. On our walk, we came across a funeral procession marching through the main street of the city. I don’t know if you know, Klaytaza, but when people die at their jobs from overwork – and it happens almost every day, to every factory - they are simply thrown out of the windows. Tossed away like common trash so that they don’t take up space at their posts; people come behind them and work on their tasks as soon as they disappear. The corpses are taken out to the outskirts of the city and thrown in the chasms left by the veins of the cities, where they eventually degrade into resources that can be used to feed surviving humans. My sister and I saw a procession of corpses being led out of the city, and we followed them. No one ever follows the processions; no one ever mourns for a dying person here. When someone disappears, their family simply accepts the loss and praises them for dying at their posts like a dedicated and efficient member of society.” Arend paused, overcome by emotion, and swallowed a hard lump in his sore throat. He looked off into the dismal obsidian horizon, transfixed by the past and the painful disgust it slapped him with. “I was horrified and fascinated by the practice. It was the first funeral I had ever seen, and I brought my sister along to teach her. That was when I first realized that life in this world is hopeless, paved with lonely despair and conformity from birth to empty death. But my sister… I will never forget what she said that night, after we watched the bodies be thrown away into the unforgiven earth and once we started to head back to our empty home. She was crying, and she asked me why the stars didn’t shine for that person’s noble sacrifice. Klaytaza… in the glint of that single half-second, I realized two things. First, I knew that my sister was nothing like me, and if she could not even share my mind, I was doomed to alienation forever. She did not mourn for the men and women who had worked themselves to death; she only wanted to know why there were no bright stars in the sky to make their deaths more beautiful. She was old enough to see the world for what it was – she is only two years younger than me – but she was still blind, and she would be forever blind. Second, and finally, I realized that we are all born alone and we will all die alone, and we have scarred the earth so much that it won’t care about us at all. All of us are born, and we will disappear, and nothing will shine for us.” “I was right,” Klaytaza said, her smoky voice and eyes seemingly drinking on Arend’s nostalgic listlessness. “And so were you. You are different from the others, yet all humans are the same. It is so for us Keys as well.” ‘No,’ Arend thought to himself with narrowed eyes, ‘I am not different. I am a foolish, finite, sinful human, as well.’ Though she was still monotonous and audibly emotionless, Klaytaza’s voice was suddenly orotund and full of pride. “It was life that brought me to my ultimate goal, and it was death that brought you to yours. This is only fitting for the two of us, Master.” “Our ultimate goal, huh… So how are we going to accomplish that? End the world, I mean – and keep it from reviving.” “It will be simple,” Klaytaza answered with a blink. “We must destroy every other Key to Eternity before they can complete the Thousand Eternal Ritual.” “Simple…? How many Keys are there?” “A thousand, minus one. That is where the name comes from.” Arend’s eyes widened and he gulped. “We have to kill a thousand immortal Keys like yourself…” The boy swallowed and let his hands tighten into fists with the heavy pen securely in his grip. “So be it. We will do what we must – because we are right. I have seen it and so have you. We owe it to the world to save it from destruction… and there is no other way to change humanity than to destroy it. To not fight when I have the power to fix this twisted reality would be the greatest sin I could ever imagine.” “As you wish, my Master. My peers will have Masters of their own, and many of them will likely hate us and try to eliminate us for our rebellion, but I will protect you.” “I have faith that you will, Klaytaza. I swear to you that I – we – will not fail. The other Keys are ignorant of the world’s true state, but we know the blighted, sad truth… and we will act on it. The only true salvation is annihilation.” Arend licked his lips and found himself distantly surprised at his own passion. A frenzy of power had completely enveloped him and washed over every inch of his skin, and simply being in Klaytaza’s presence was enough to fill him with the happiest confidence and the most blasphemous resolve. He could not imagine feeling this way or having this courage with anyone else by his side; and just as he realized this, he spoke it aloud, like a resolution that was right in front of him all his life. “Yes… I want to see the world end. And I want to see it with you.” “Very well then,” Klaytaza whispered in affirmation. “And so it will be. The eradication of existence will be realized by our own hands.” She looked over to Arend curiously and affectionately. Spurred on by her gaze, Arend removed his hand from his pocket – leaving behind the golden pen – and took her hand. They shared one last wistful look to the decayed earth ahead of them before turning and returning to the dim streets and the dove gray mist. “I have a final set of questions for you, Master, if you do not mind.” “Of course not. Ask me anything and I will answer with all my soul.” “Are you truly willing to relinquish an eternal life for destruction?” “Yes. This has been the easiest choice I have ever made in my life, and I have never been surer of one.” “What has humanity amounted to, my Master?” “Absolutely nothing.” “And how long are you willing to be with me until we successfully end the ritual of salvation?” Arend smiled. “Forever.” KEYS TO ETERNITY REMAINING: 998 <- Back | Next ->